The present invention relates to an improved pressure accumulator construction and more particularly to a pressure accumulator utilizing a helical spring which encircles the cylinder of the accumulator.
By way of background, pressure accumulators utilizing mechanical springs have fallen out of favor because their energy storage capacity is a fraction of the energy storage capacity of pressure accumulators which are of the gas or liquid spring type. The reason they have fallen out of favor is two-fold. First of all, in those designs wherein the mechanical spring was incorporated within a cylinder, the space occupied by the spring limited the capacity of the accumulator. Furthermore, the metal springs did not have the desired energy storage capacity because they could not provide long travel at a high spring force. It is with overcoming the foregoing deficiencies of prior spring accumulators that the present invention is concerned.